Mango Salad with Raspberry Dressing

Yesterday, we woke up to this:

As you know,  (If you read my post yesterday)  I had some minor dental surgery yesterday...very minor, but I stayed home from work. That was not my original intent, but the person who was covering for me, called and said, do you want me to stay all day? She offered, I said yes. (I could have gone in, but a FREE day was handed to me--YAY)

So, I hunkered down with a warm blanket, a good book, and a DVD I'd been wanting to watch.
It was a great unexpected day off.

The book I finished last night, "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett, and the DVD we watched while eating some Split Pea soup that the Handyman brought home from a restaurant and while it was really, really, good, I had been craving this salad that I made last week.
I didn't think it would be a good idea for me last night tho, to be crunching on nuts and sticky dried cranberries.

I think you should try this.....it's no different from a lot of salad mixtures, but the dressing is really different. Even the Handyman liked it, and he usually is a big "ice-burg, cucumber and tomato" fan.

I don't have a name for it... let's call it Mango salad.
 
Mango Salad with Raspberry dressing.
 
Baby Spinach (it doesn't say so, but I would add another lettuce in addition to the spinach, for a bit of texture maybe)

Dried Cranberries
Walnuts
Feta Cheese (I used blue cheese crumbles, because that's what I had on hand, and it was GREAT)
Mangos

Dressing:
1 Tbsp cocoa
1 Tbsp sugar
Raspberry vinaigrette--about 3/4 to 1 cup
Put in a shaker jar and shake.

Dress your salad with only as much as you would like.
It's a really nice salad.
(maybe one day, I'll learn to take a great picture, but for now.... you get these.)

And....remember my "picture a day" resolution?

I haven't forgotten it...I'm taking the pics, I just haven't posted them in a timely manner and now there is over a month's worth to post. I'll put them up in a different blog and post a link here very soon.

Here is one for you tho.....
I walked outside to get in my car the other morning....Wednesday, the day before the big snowstorm and there was a tumbleweed on my sidewalk. A Big old tumbleweed had just rolled up to our house.

I guess some people have never seen tumbleweeds. I guess you can actually order tumbleweeds off the internet and have them sent to you. Although why anyone would want to is beyond me. Tumbleweeds are ....horrible. They have stickers that get under your skin and irritate the heck out of you.
They roll in the wind, until they come to a barrier, usally  a fence or the cornor of your yard.  and then you have to put on gloves to "get rid" of them, because you can't just pick them up with your bare hands.

I know that tumbleweeds are a 'western" thing..... and I guess it is kind of cool to watch the wind blow and see some tumbleweeds roll across the street. Just don't roll into my yard you tumbleweed!!
 

 
The Handyman and I took a walk a while ago and these are other tumbleweeds we saw  ( we live in the desert... dont' confuse sagebrush with tumbleweeds.... the meadowlark is on sagebrush...good smelling sage, no prickly stickers)  but if you look closely, (at the last picture) you can see a tumbleweed has snuck in there..in the sagebrush.  They are very invasive.
(and seriously....one can come to love the desert. There is great beauty in the desert.  We are not "Southwest", so don't confuse the two.  We live in the high desert of Northern Nevada.   )